Tutorial Introduction
Introduction
Quest is a program for writing text adventure games, also known as Interactive Fiction. You can download Quest for Windows, or you can access the web version to create games in your web browser on any platform - Windows, Mac, Linux, iPad etc. - without downloading any software.
Text adventure games were the earliest type of computer game, from a time when computers could only display text - there were no graphics. Over time, text adventure games became less popular, as graphical games became dominant. However, just as the movie didn't replace the novel, the text adventure lives on, occupying its particular niche - games that make you sit down and think.
Here are some reasons why you should think about creating a text adventure game:
- Text adventures are easy to create
- You don't need to have a team of people creating graphics, music and sound effects. You don't even need any programming experience. If you've never created a game before, a text adventure is the easiest and quickest way to start. This doesn't mean that it's trivial - creating a good game, like creating a good novel, takes a lot of effort - but you don't need to have any special tools or expertise to start.
- Text adventures are accessible
- You don't need fast reactions to play a text adventure. In fact, you don't even need to be able to see - text adventures are one of the few types of games that the visually impaired can enjoy, using a screen reader to speak the text aloud. You don't need to have a particular type of computer - you can play a text adventure game using nothing more than a web browser. All of this means that a text adventure can be played by just about anybody.
Using Quest, you can play and create text games, which can include pictures, sounds and video. To play some games which people have created already, see textadventures.co.uk.
If you have some time to spare, it's well worth watching the documentary Get Lamp (also on YouTube) - it's a brilliant telling of the history of text adventure games.
You can find another great introduction for beginners at Brass Lantern.
Programming without Programming
Until a few years ago, if you wanted to create a text adventure, you had to write programming code. What makes writing text adventures now so much easier is the Visual Editor that Quest provides - you still enter text, add commands, use variables (for score, time etc.), control the outcomes and so on, just as in "real" programming, but Quest guides you through the process. There's no longer a need to know remember syntax, type in strange punctuation or even remember commands, because Quest lets you point and click to create your game. The aim of Quest is to get you started quickly, even if you have never programmed before, yet still provide you with real programming power. And if you do happen to be able to program, then Quest also features a "Code View" enabling you to switch back and forth.
Video Tutorial
Throughout the tutorial, you may see "Video Tutorial" links at the start of some of the sections. These link to videos on YouTube showing the same content as in the tutorial, created by Kristian Still. You can find all videos on the YouTube channel.
